Oh peaceful Laos where dogs don’t bark and cat’s don’t chase chicks.

Also it’s the 2^nd biggest town of the country and the most touristic, landing in Luang Prabang feels like landing in a small countryside airport. You get off the plane to walk on the tarmac as long as you want, no one is hurrying you! You cross the visa office and the customs as easily as you would have done in your own country and maybe even faster. Then you arrive in the main hall of this international airport : 2 souvenir shops, 1 café, 1 restaurants, 1 exchange counter and 1 counter to book cabs : exactly everything you need, nothing more, nothing less.

The road down to the city centre is quick and already you feel at peace.

Is it because there are so many Buddhist monks giving a nice orange shade to the countryside? Because people got used to meditate all day long, looking at the rivers?

Even in this big city, you can’t feel stressed. Even here, you cross tones of wild dogs wandering around and none of them looks mean, none of them will bark at you. What a magical city !

You walk for 2 minutes and you find a Buddhist temple. You go away, to wander in the streets and you find even more temples, without even looking for them. Huge touristic temples, smaller temples, unused temples (there’s not much of them but it happens). And with all those temples, monks everywhere, living their day to day lives : sweeping the outside floor, washing their cloths, bathing, washing their teeth, meditating, chatting, walking somewhere… so many shades of oranges !

When you’re tired of wandering around, you stop at a coffee by the river : Nam Ou or Mekong depending of what you prefer and if you want to see the sunset.

Then you can enjoy the most peaceful night-market of South-East-Asia: between 60 and 100 shops invade the main street in 4 rows. All selling the same kind of stuff : scarfs, pants/dresses/shorts/shirts, tea/coffees, drawings or other small handcraft things. Apparently, Lao people don’t like to take risks : they only sell the same kind of stuff as their neighbor because they know it sells well. Sellers are seated in their small shops, looking at people going by and talking to each other. Some bring their babies to take care of them. Some cut the nails of their children waiting for a customer. Some just sleep there.

Customers come and go, stop sometime to bargain one or two things and that’s it.

On the side streets, you’ll find the food shops and buffets. This parts of the night market seem much more busy but still, while you enjoy you 10 000 kip (almost 1 euro) buffet on a table you share with other people, you don’t feel overwhelmed by people or sounds. It’s like everybody is trying to keep it quiet for fear to disturb the monks meditations.

One thing is for sure : with so little noise, you can get great nights of sleep in here.